Palafox

5

Spaniels, beagles, bassets and border collies, a fine pack of hounds, followed by beaters, a dozen or so — all preceding Sadarnac whom we weren’t expecting and who jumped from the dog-cart, his canes fagotted on one shoulder, let him come along if he wants to. Palafox is in danger. The countryfolk are expanding their search, armed with their anger, shotguns and pitchforks in fist, it’s a matter of saving the district from a volcano, nothing more nothing less. They will not hesitate to fire. The dogs will help us to flush him out before they do, Algernon wants him alive, Algernon remains convinced that with patience, effort, work, something can be made of him. The progress the creature made in its first lessons was sufficiently encouraging. His aggression diminished, he was frequently docile around us, even affectionate, with a sweetness at first impossible to imagine, given his carapace covered with barbs, his long rostrum perforated and sharp as a saw, the foul liquid he emits when rising so as not to soil himself, his fanlike tail, or also this nasty habit he will have to lose, of swallowing his prey alive. Of course, Palafox, like ourselves, has four hands or, depending on the need and the task, like ourselves, has four feet, two magnificent almond-shaped black eyes and a jovial smile between his ears, but this wouldn’t be enough to take him in our arms — the elephant and the mosquito both have trunks, have they ever shared an embrace, a real embrace, a single brotherly embrace? Our physical similarities don’t explain everything. Look elsewhere for explanations of these crude moments of tenderness.

The humid ground kept a record of his itinerary, straight ahead to the crossroads, then to the left, again to the left. The tracks are clear all the way to the forest. When Palafox leaps he sends his posterior paws far in front of his anterior paws, so that the oval impressions of the former always preceded those of the shallower tridactylic latter. Both come to an end at forest’s verge, as if Palafox took off for good never to return to earth or, who knows, opting for a mode of locomotion most discrete, infinitely more so, had preferred to continue by swimming.

Fruitless morning hunt.

Sounds of horns.

Our guides signal us at last, with horns, after a fruitless morning hunt. A stag? A wild boar? Or, him? The dogs seem out of sorts, a rare disarray in hunting dogs, in which respect they recall the sea horse, similarly nonplussed by you-name-it. But that’s as far as the similarities go, a sea horse is less faithful, more independent, something of the cat in him, perhaps. Some among us recommend sun exposure, others blotting paper, now the conversation turns to the preservation of sea horses, knowing that the sun makes them shrivel and fades their colors but that too often, alas, they rot under the blotter — when no one is willing to alter his position the discussion bogs down. Not another word. The animal approaches, his gallop resounds in the silence, and Franc-Nohain regales us with a similar case of a foreign sovereign preceded in his travels by his drummers. A tree conceals him once again, an oak, one of these enormous oaks from which one would have the right, finally, to expect something other than acorns, better than acorns, acorns, three hundred years of acorns, nothing but acorns, acorns, acorns, why not wise maxims for example — at the foot of which families would unpack their picnics without the slightest regard, worse still without a crumb for the legendary patriarch crouched there, today having abandoned all hope of disengaging his beard from the roots, around which the family now sated dances, and, compelled in order to close their dance circle, it’s sad to say, tear the baby apart.

A wild boar would have charged. A stag would have been frozen in place and would have devoured us with his eye, incredulous, still full of love, looking to divine our intentions, judging the joke to be infantile and of doubtful taste, nonetheless ready to laugh with us, out of courtesy. Someone then would have shouldered his rifle. The stag would have stared hard for an instant to be certain to have understood, before resolving, too late, to flee. Palafox, upon seeing us, swings around us and forks off into the undergrowth. The pack of hounds takes off after him, the small group of us stays together, womanizers, pipe-smokers, lovers of billiards and old whisky, among other aptitudes. The bushes impede our progress. We move slowly (similarities end there, snails live in bunches on thistle and our efforts in this sense fail without glory one after the other), the movement that frees us from one bramble delivers us to the next and we progress in this manner, as though carried in triumph, but in actual fact skinned by the cutpurses who put on our hats, blow their noses in our handkerchiefs, under the pretext of touching us, and claw at our hands and faces. It was on a similar fine spring afternoon, in identical circumstances, that Franc-Nohain while struggling dropped his rifle and that our friend Chancelade, the father of the present Chancelade, struck right in the heart, crumpled. Among the many hypotheses mentioned in the instance of violent death — sordid settling of affairs, tragic amorous contretemps, inexplicable and momentary madness, bitter battle for power — it was the unfortunate accident model that was maintained and broadcast with a few alterations to key details, Franc-Nohain really only blamed the roe deer. We had been tracking them since dawn, sensitive to butterflies as well (not particularly credible as a metamorphosis from spineless prickly black caterpillars, come now, look elsewhere), to their furtive flight, under the spell of their days (the pretty vanessa morio and its soot-black wings rimmed with yellow which slips a poppy into the midst of its blue bouquet, periwinkle, forget-me-not, is doubtless not the most representative of country people), but stingy with our buckshot. The herd wasn’t far; the bramble presented itself to us as chaperone, and how could we refuse and under what pretext? The roes slipped away from us. In a way, the ex-Chancelade paid for their escape. A few tears, a few scratches, this time the damage isn’t as bad, repairable with a little green thread, as much rose, and some brown copper buttons tanned for our jackets.

The pack of hounds has muddied the faint trail in the humus that Palafox leaves when he soars off or lands, prints left by his wings. On the leaves and the dark mosses, on the other hand, his trail of saliva is still very clear, very white, very fine, with several variations of the scallop stitch at the end of which a basset hound is lying as if asleep, but his head is between his back paws, a spaniel’s head, he is not really asleep. In a nearby bush, Algernon finds the body of the spaniel cleaved longitudinally in two. The blood had not dribbled onto the fur, the longitudinal cut was made with care. Essentially, as we see, the biology of dog and man is not so different. There’s the heart, the intestines and the brain, less of a jumble, sure, but still complex. And the lungs, the liver, the stomach, the kidneys are all there, where they should be, we could make do. A few of the dogs, once springy and soft, henceforth stiff and stout, tongue and chops now blue, pink noses pale, eyes yellow, and yet seem not to have been touched. Some, disemboweled, disgorged and carved alive, bear marks from blows and seem truly dead, those over there, without any reservation beyond the ticks leaping and the breeze ruffling their fur. All in all, a huge sample, in fact the gamut of shrewd methods of disposing of a dog without having to resort to drowning or shooting, nothing more than the application of tentacles, fangs, horns, venom and your ten fingers. Under such conditions, following Palafox’s trail is child’s play, a real pleasure, the dog-pack does its job well. After three hours’ march, nevertheless, the traces diminish. The ear of a beagle, here. A bit farther, the other half of the animal. Night falls. We take turns by the fire. Of the single hound found alive, four paws are missing. He moans, asleep on one side, he no longer leaps up when we near. We finish him off more than once during the night, with the same seizing of our hearts each time, with a mortal blow to his neck.

Our strategy, designed for the carnage of rock partridges, a crowning success well beyond our expectations (haven’t we all pheasant feathers in our caps?) shows its limitations. With certain game, it is awkward to use the same strategy, as with killing one’s grandmother. This is the first major lesson the learning of which we owe to Palafox. And we’ll reiterate: there are many things to learn from him, certainly in the wooded domain of the hunt but not only there, not only, he knows the grasses that cure and, by instinct, before everyone, before the clouds, what the weather will be the next day. And better than anyone, adds Sadarnac — the coral massifs of the Sargasso. But do not listen to him.

I have an idea, Swanscombe shouts and, interrupting himself — draws on his pipe, allows his stare to stray, wins all the prizes for best male lead, becoming a teenage heartthrob — at last continues: the success of my plan depends upon choosing the proper decoy. That steel whistle does nothing for the linnet or the skylark (you have to use one made of silver or copper) which works wonders on warblers and wagtails. With a split cherry branch, a bit of silver birch bark, a cherry pit and quill from a feather, beech leaves, ivy, scrub brush and two serrated teeth, I would be able to reproduce the cry, the song, the groan or the gallop of every animal in the forest — tipi-ti, tipi-ti, fioiu-fiou-frou, krr-ek, chchch-st, tuituitui, kyac, tirlitt, gah-onk-aa-onk, ou-rou-rou, piap, di-del-di-o, zizibeh-zizi-beh, et cetera. Because the onomatopoeias that we commonly use to beastify among men, that we teach to young children before the alphabet and the colors, belong to the lexicon of a dead language, extant perhaps on Noah’s Ark, but that is hardly used today or even understood by the mules of today, the cows and cocks. Cock-a-doodle-do may as well be the sound of pots falling to the floor, heehaw when they hit the earth. Exhaling gently onto a beech leaf chosen from among more than one hundred thousand trembling candidates, Swanscombe bleats out, then croons, groans, ululates, growls. Here is a nannygoat, a ringdove, a woodcock, an owl, and a cat which all and each one by one are calling Palafox, singing themselves hoarse, shouting at the top of their lungs, and, panting, fall silent as their voices are carried away by the wind.

The punitive raids of peasants also fail, despite the importance of their land and air forces, mobilized. Airplanes spray the region with copper sulphate on hedgehopping flights, methodically, and spread upon the cultivated land a terrible mixture made of pulverized chrysanthemums and pimpernel — excellent against certain pests, efficacious when it comes to melons and cabbage which we would willingly send away for three weeks to a mountain sanatorium before allowing on our table but which Palafox, our Palafox, laughs at. The field of his exactions has expanded. He no longer hesitates to push in greenhouse doors, breaking windows and frames, hindering the ripening — just like the unfortunate irruption of the amateur photographer’s wife in the toilet-cum-darkroom, go on, go on, I just have to powder myself and then I’m gone — of the tomatoes which will remain an unwavering yellow. And of course he avails himself of tangerines and oranges, and strawberries, strawberries above all, how couldn’t one prefer them to all other fruits, to apples that bump into the glutton’s nose and to bananas that poke his eyes, whereas the strawberries kiss one’s lips before being swallowed? As for the wolf traps hidden in bushes and ferns, that manage to trap a few field mice, Palafox has evaded them all. Fooled by a few chunks of weasel, it happens that the peasants think themselves well rid of him at last. Congratulations abound, the carcass is thrown onto the pyre. By the flicker of flames, we notice Palafox passing through, hugging the ground, gosling between his teeth. Others found him slow. He limped slightly, they claimed. He is wounded. He was the gosling. Too much talk, overhead. In truth, it isn’t unusual for animals caught in a trap to mutilate themselves to gain their freedom. Badgers and flying squirrels gnaw on their trapped paws, chew until it gives, it gives, three bites by a fox are enough, does, hares and birds of prey make the same sacrifice — all of them do it with the exception, however regularly chained to an unfriendly policeman, of man, who never has the courage or even the imagination to do this.

Perhaps one of these paws belonged to Palafox. A poacher is speaking. He dumps his game bag onto the grass, with a sinister smile, as if he were the incarnation of a critic in a choreographer’s nightmare. This poacher has forgotten one thing, or overlooked it, ophidians in general and Palafox in particular lack limbs. Consequently, when we happen upon his sinuous trail in the sand or in the dust, how can we know if we should take our own steps towards the Arctic or the Antarctic? There, his fur would within days develop a pallor sufficient to mask him within the whiteness of those lands. Meager would be our chances of spotting two black pupils in all that snow. Whatever it takes, Palafox mustn’t be allowed to reach such parts.

Once in a while a hunter boasts that he has killed him. In the minute that follows, this dark man emerges from anonymity. The wildlife photographer from the local newspaper immortalizes him, seated on the creature or gripping it by the gills, his son beside him seems so small, or by the ears, but preferably by the wings, so as to show to all the extraordinary wingspan and as if to say he’s become somebody. And these are in effect good little catches, dappled deer, wild rabbits, pike-perch, magnificent briar cocks that share the front page with General Fontechevade. (Heartening news from the front. The enemy is in retreat. Our brave boys are gaining ground for our cows. We harvest the hills.) Algernon, pensive, folds the paper, a fly-fisherman kisses the general on both cheeks, and then bites him on the nose, Fontechevade frowns, punches his attacker, tears the tremendous carp from his grasp and secrets it on his person, the other retaliates, tries to strangle him, twist off his head, throw him over his shoulder, the earth trembles and cracks around them, then Algernon abandons them to their fate. My friends, he concludes, change of plans. Since Palafox is deaf to your cooings, my poor Swanscombe, we will need to supply him with different temptations. Can we lure him? It’s a tried and true tactic, the corncob delivers the rat, the lamb the wolf, the bee need only claim the bear tempted by a honeycomb. Sadarnac offers worms, larvae, flies, grasshoppers, balls of cheese, pieces of apple or raw meat. It has got to stink, bleed or wriggle. Or at least shine, and Sadarnac draws golden spoons from his boots, gilded with black dots, gilded with red dots, silver-plated, silver-plated with black dots, silver-plated with red dots, and others, gilded or silver-plated, with stripes, red or black, and feathered hooks, glittering lures, glass pearls…

Sides of beef, chicken giblets, wildflowers, marrow bones, buckets of oats, hazelnuts, berries, chicory, carrots, lights, bran, salt, milk… our trap is simple: victuals kept in plain sight at the foot of a tree; between the branches, a large net hung on two hoops crossed and manipulated from afar with the aid of a rope that will require one firm tug at the right moment to trap: Palafox. This hiding is a new exercise for us, men of action, it would be more natural for us to be seated in an arena. Beneath the shelter of a hedge we wait. We wait. We wait several days, the sting of the nettle is more painful but less lasting than that of the mosquito. At dawn, the humidity sticks you to your bed of leaves, fingers interlaced, a bronze lamp-base twisted tastelessly for a neck, eyes extinguished behind the head. The birds also tell their dreams to each other, in his a jay was a sow with a slit throat. A thousand nights’ other observations of general interest. No Palafox. We throw stones at crows, rodents and little carnivores that whirl around the buffet. Pssch, we’re scaring off the vipers. Flies land on our pâté, briefly, as if afraid of the snap of a tail. The sun sets — at the antipodes we do all our business with this bright fat coin darkly in hand: here is night that comes at such a cost, came with only a dime change, risen, there, the moon.

And there, Palafox. At last he appears, unhurried, to the feast. He was skinning a fly when the net fell on him. His buckings and gesticulations are to no greater effect than to ensnare him more deeply. We approach, he recoils, frightening, he beats his chest with his enormous fists, as if he was trying to hammer out armor in a hurry. We draw back. Palafox takes advantage of our hesitation, and wriggling around he attempts to slip through the netting — he has already managed to get his head and one of his paws through, three, seven, then twelve of his paws, but already we are on him. Franc-Nohain winds rope around his ankles. Swanscombe muzzles him and Algernon, Algernon chloroforms him. Two fat balls of cork borrowed from Sadarnac take the treachery out of those horns. Let us be sure we make him exhaust his venom: be careful not to make him spit his poison. Then Algernon slips him gingerly into a crystal-clear paper pouch and gives free reign to his joy. We have him, hooray. Frankly, there are few trophies on our walls of which we are as proud (Franc-Nohain nonetheless asks that we not overlook the lone lunatic that he finished off with a knife the year before, nor the courage and the cold-bloodedness which he was able to prove in such circumstances, but this goes without saying). Is it necessary to mention that Sandarac’s version of these events differs from those already reported? In this version, Palafox was caught by the light rod and reel method — he opposed a protracted resistance, twice broke the line, unwound up to a hundred and twenty meters of line, and bit the hook and bait with such force that I had to shove my hand inside his mouth to unhook him, you can imagine the hazard, knowing that a pike’s jaw sports no fewer than seven hundred teeth. But Sadarnac tells tall tales, you know him, what really was at risk given he had a gutting knife? A child of five years, his little brother of four would have been able to withdraw the spoonbait.